Wales is in the back seat of green car journey

Wales is in the back seat when it comes to serving and providing for the latest electric cars and hybrids.

There are just 35 rapid charging points throughout Wales, with hardly any in central Wales, and there is a real need to have facilities in car parks and supermarkets across the country.

The shortage of rapid charging points has been highlighted by EV exponents Next Green Car.

Melanie Shufflebotham, co-Founder of Zap-Map and Next Green Car, said, “A robust rapid charger infrastructure will be critical for Wales as more people are buying electric cars – it will be good both for tourism and the local economy.

“In comparison to Scotland, which has over 200 rapid chargers, Wales with only 35 is lagging behind.”

Adding together all Wales’s charging points, both rapid and conventional, for public use and they add up to 350, but that means any of the tens of thousands of EV and hybrid car owners could have to queue up when they can find a point.

Zap-Map.com was started four years ago this summer and is available as iOS via the App Store and compatible with iOS7 onwards with an Android version as well, both suitable or phone or tablet use.

Owned by Next Green Car, the map logs the precise location of over 16,000 public charging points at 5,500 locations and half display their status every five minutes in an active map.

In a typical month it might get 60,000 requests from users for status and locations, so the demand is there for the chargers.

The map also shows just two hydrogen refuelling stations in Wales, at Baglan energy park and the University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd. There are ten in the rest of the UK with just one in Aberdeen.